News Briefs

Hundreds are dead and more than 120,000 have been displaced after weeks of ethnic violence between the Murle and Luo Nuer communities in South Sudan’s Jonglei State. • Repre-sentatives of most of the world’s bishops’ conferences and 30 religious orders met in Rome on Feb. 6-9 to launch a global initiative to improve efforts to stop clerical sexual abuse and better protect children and vulnerable adults. • The Plowshares activist Bill Bichsel, S.J., ended a two-week fast he began in mid-January to protest his transfer to solitary confinement and conditions at the Federal Detention Center near Seattle, Wash. • The Rev. Larry Snyder, President and chief executive officer of Catholic Charities USA, called awarding the agency’s Centennial Medal on Feb. 2 to Cristo Rey Network’s founder, John Foley, S.J., “a tribute to Father John’s commitment and dedication to improving the lives of young people in communities that otherwise wouldn’t have a chance.” • On Jan. 30, Anita Collins and Anita Guzzardi, employees of the New York and Philadelphia archdioceses respectively, were accused of stealing $1 million each in decades-long embezzlement schemes.